Yesterday was not the best day. I am feeling unsettled for some reason. Actually this morning is better than yesterday. Yesterday I did not feel very grounded at all. I wonder if it has to do with my concerns or if it has to do with where I am. It is beautiful around here - but it is not the same energy as New Mexico or The Grand Canyon.
As I listened to the radio yesterday, there were countless commercials about how people could fix themselves.
When I left this area I wondered if I would ever be back. Well. That question has now been answered. I had no idea what would bring me back here. Little did I know about 3 years ago what was coming - at least not consciously. When I moved, I could not move fast enough. I knew I had to leave. Things happened rather fast, even though they had been building to that point for quite some time.
I am glad I listened. Being in California when the cancer awareness came would have really sucked. The same thng happened when I moved to California. It happened in a way that seemed sudden. But it is something I had wanted to do for a long time.
I am not sure why I moved here (to California) when I did. It just seemed to work and fit at that time in a way that it didn't seem to other times. Now I am glad that I did it, as I might have always wondered "what if?" as it was something I had always wanted to for years.
There is another thing I had wanted to do: buy a house in New Mexico. When I went there on this trip, I was reminded of that. There is something about the energy and spirit of that area that speaks to me. I keep thinking I have to live long enough to make that happen.
When I met Jean, the Shaman, she and I sat in a room within her house and we talked for a bit. She is very much who I could see myself being. I often imagined being an older woman who had a place that people came to see me. I wasn't quite sure what they would see me for, but I would be a "wise old woman" that seemed to have something others were interested in.
When I think about the things I thought would be my life, there are many things that never came to pass. A part of me thinks that image may be one of them. Another part says it could very much come to pass. It says that in some ways my life right now can very much be building up to that point, just as it had built up at other points in my life.
I have fallen behind in sharing images from the trip. I am struggling a bit. A part of me says this is what the trip is about. It is not just about the good stuff, and the stuff that makes me smile. It is about each and every piece and moment.
Just like life is.
I have discovered that while I am enjoying meeting people, I am feeling my best when I am not around a lot of them at the same time. It must be my empathic self picking up too much of others. I have tended to stay away and out of the larger cities and areas. LA is definitely much more than I have been around in a while. It probably makes sense that I would be feeling the way I do being here.
But it does not mean being by myself. I stlll connect with and talk to people. It is just more one on one. I only need one other person to feel connected. I had stopped at an isolated place to get something to eat. Very few people were there, but I found a lovely family moving from New York to Arizona that I connected with, and who prayed for me on the spot.
This trip makes me long for a simple life. The last year contributes to that, too. I got rid of so many things when I moved in 2011, and many more when I moved out of my friend's house. But I still have "stuff." I was trying to explain to someone yesterday about how some of my stuff mattered. I am not sure what that conversation was because I don't really think the conversation was about stuff. I think it was about something deeper. And stuff was only a piece of it.
It wasn't the easiest conversation, either. She did not know what was going on with me. I had to explain what was going on. I hate having to explain my situation. But if I don't, people don't get what is going on. They don't get the significance of my circumstances or my trip. They might even see things as frivoulous.
There are times I feel a bit like a fraud. I told Ellen early in this trip as odd as it may sound that a part of me wondered if people would think I was faking things should I find myself well. There are times I feel really good, and act like everything is just fine. I am sure that there are some who probably think I can't be "that" sick.
I struggle with it a bit, as I do not want to be invested in staying sick. But the part of me that asks for help often feels defensive. I would rather not ask. I would rather not need. But circumstances compel me. Yesterday I asked the hotel I am staying at to reduce their rate in exchange for promotion. I got a firm no. I should be used to that by now, but it still bothered me. Not so much that they said no, but just the fact that I felt I needed to ask, and the fact that I was at the time also acutely aware that this trip has now entered the $4000 range, and I have only raised just over $2000 for it. I have been charging my credit card to pay for it, and I would rather not.
At the same time, I felt like the trip was too important not to go. I knew I had to do it. Even if I had no help, although I had hoped that people would see value in what I was looking to do and create and would want to support the trip's message by helping to support me.
The biggest thing for me is going to be to translate the lessons of this trip to my "real" life. I have pretty much decided that I can't see myself going back on chemo. That could change, I suppose, but there is a part of me that just can't see it happening. If there is a need to do something according to the medical profession and I don't, I may not be here much longer.
Living so fully right now makes that a hard thing to consider. So much about this trip makes me want to live more and do more. I really would not want this to be the end.
When I go back, I will find out what the scans say. Hopefully it will be , "GO LIVE LIFE. YOU ARE CLEAR."
A few weeks ago I felt like my life was over. Now I feel like it is just beginning. If how I feel is an indication of things to come, I know that a new world has opened up and that I will be able to stick around for a while.
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